Wednesday, February 07, 2007

IN: 'Costumes of all nations - 123 plates, containing over 1500coloured costume pictures by the first Munich artists. 1913 Tyrolean'

The above 2 are IN: 'Dessiné d'après les modéles en cheveux de P. Florentin in Album de dessins en cheveux. 1870s'(I had no idea that hair art/jewellery and death went together. But then again, I had no idea that hair art even existed.) There are more images in this series.[And just because I found it: 'A Bibliography of books & other materialson gravestones, cemeteries, epitaphs, mourning, funerals, andrelated subjects' at (where else) A Grave Affair]

At the risk of repeating (??) myself, one of the strange (few) rules I impose upon myself is that I'm not allowed to visit any of the NYC library sites unless it's by 'accident' - from a search or from a secondary link. I don't ever steer the browser there as a primary destination. Partly this is because it's like shooting fish in a barrel so BibliOdyssey might just become a mirror site for their wonderful collections, in which case I would tend to feel a tad redundant; and partly it's because of the great swathes of time the sites steal from my life when I get there.

"13 maps; Draught of Boston harbour.; harbour of Placentia.; harbour of Anapolis Royal.; Plan of the town and harbour of Louisbourg in the island of Cape Breton ...; Draught of New York and Perthamboy Harbour.; Harbour of St. Augustine.; Harbour of Providence.; Havana.; Bay of St. Jago de Cuba.; Town and harbour of Charles Town in South Carolina.; Fort Royal in Martinico.; Plan of the town and harbour of Cartagena.; Plan of the harbour town and forts of Porto Bello when taken by Admiral Vernon on Nov. 22. 1739 with 6 ships only."IN: 'A complete atlas or distinct view of the known world.' London : Printed for W. Innys, R. Ware, 1752. [from the University of South Florida Map Collection -- also accessible from the Luna Insight browser exhibits page via David Rumsey]

The Russian Birch Bark Library - more than 900 samples ofmedieval birch writings from East Slavic peoples {11th to 15th centuries}.The website is completely in russian - I just threw in random numbers tothe search field to retrieve these images. [page in english]

When Microsoft Vista was launched in the UK last week, Bill Gates announced that he had contributed a digital edition of a Leonardo da Vinci manuscript to the British Library's Turn The Pages site. So I went across there and downloaded a huge add-on to my XP platform so that I could view the Arundel manuscript, owned by the British Library - from which the above screencaps were taken. [more info/via]

Personally speaking, I find most of the turn the pages websites to be more gimmick than enhancement. This one in particular was a huge resources hog but at least the manuscript pages can be flipped to read Leonardo's mirrored writing (if medieval Italian is your thing). And to add insult to injury perhaps, I also think examining *some* of the Leonardo's manuscripts to be an overrated experience. I am generally more inclined towards the Leonardo sites that Bibi catalogued the other day (but there are lots more). I'm still not sure whether the manuscript Gates bought for $30 million in 1994 can be viewed without actually having the Vista operating system.

Speaking of the British Library...

"..the future of the British Library as a world-class, free resource is under threat from plans to cut up to 7 per cent of its £100m budget in this year's Treasury spending round.

To survive, the library proposes to slash opening hours by more than a third and to charge researchers for admission to the reading rooms for the first time.

All public exhibitions would close, along with schools learning programmes. The permanent collection, which includes a copy of every book published in the UK, would be permanently reduced by 15 per cent. And the national newspaper archive, used by 30,000 people a year, including many researching their family trees, would close."

Oh hey Kel! It's a beautiful book and, like one of the commenters said in the LJ thread, it's about the best thing I've seen in that LJ handmade books community (which I've subscribed to for many months). So thanks!

The marble papers are beautiful. I've been finding about the Ottoman art form that started marble papers off -- called ebru (sorry, no Turkish pronunciation guide marks in my software...) My neighbor, Feridun Ozgoren, is a master of the form, but it always seems to photograph badly. I've learned that ebru was produced in the Ottoman Empire simply for the beauty of the form, nothing to do with bookbinding. Wondering, if there were good photos, might they appear here?

First it would be marble then parquetry and pretty soon I'd have to put curtains up and provide velour bean bags for guests. We'd be discussing wallpaper samples and shag pile weave patterns. This could get out of hand very quickly.

I think I'll just stick to monster prints and hallucinatory book illustrations. Know thy game.